


Why Didn't You Wait for Me?

by FeralScribe



Series: Widomauk Week 2019 Prompts [7]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Caleb's Nightmares, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Don’t copy to another site, Dreams, Dreams and Nightmares, M/M, Minor Body Horror, Mollymauk is Dead, Nightmares, Other, Traumatized Caleb Widogast, Widomauk Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-03-20 19:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18999229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeralScribe/pseuds/FeralScribe
Summary: There's a new terror in Caleb's nightmares. He doesn't want to see Mollymauk like this, but every night Molly returns with the same question."Why didn't you wait for me?"





	Why Didn't You Wait for Me?

Nightmares are not uncommon for Caleb. His dreams often take him to a burning house, the sounds of screaming, his own flesh searing as he tries to save the ones he doomed, or they’ll trap him on that table again as the shadowy figures cut into his skin, filling the bleeding gaps with crystals and muttering arcane spells to bind them to him. If he’s lucky he’ll just dream of the asylum, where all that haunts him is endless wandering and searching for a way out that doesn’t exist.

But now there is a new addition to Caleb’s nightmares. It will either appear on its own or in conjunction with the others. He’ll pry open the burning door and on the other side will be a corpse frosted with fresh-fallen snow. He’ll close his eyes on the table and open them in a grave with mournful whispers in his ear. He’ll find an exit that leads to a hilltop with a mound of dirt and a stick jutting up out of the ground to inform passersby of what lies beneath.

Caleb always awakens from those with tears in his eyes. In the delirium that accompanies the shift from sleeping to waking he’ll look for tattoos on lavender skin and an intricately embroidered coat among the rest of the party. The tiny flicker of denial in his heart yearns for proof that Mollymauk Tealeaf is alive and well. He counts the breathing bodies around him. Six, but one of them is too large to be Molly, their coloration all wrong, and while Caleb appreciates everything Caduceus has done in his time with the Mighty Nein, he can’t fill the gap Molly left.

As with his other nightmares, Caleb doesn’t tell anyone about the new ones. The tears are wiped away before anyone else can notice them. Maybe Beau does. She notices more than Caleb likes, but it’s a small comfort that she’s keeping an eye on him. She’ll be the first to know if he crosses the line he set for himself. Nott fusses over him as much as ever, Fjord checks in with him after battles, Caduceus makes sure he gets enough to eat, and Jester tries to put a smile on his face when she can. They all miss Molly too, he knows. Caleb often looks to Yasha and wonders if she has similar dreams of her fallen best friend.

One night the dream is different. It starts off in the asylum. Caleb walks the twisting hallways. His arms are raw from his compulsive scratching. He jiggles the handle of every door he passes. They’re all locked, as usual. Except for one. Caleb opens it. It doesn’t go outside. It goes to his old room. His bedroom. He is vaguely aware that this isn’t the way his room was in his childhood home, but his subconscious accepts it as his room.

There’s someone sleeping on the bed. Someone with their back to him, horns poking out from the top of a colorful coat. Caleb stumbles as he rushes inside.

“ _Mollymauk!_ ”

The figure sits up and turns to face him. Caleb stops dead in his tracks, immobilized by horror. The red eyes are gone. The sockets are empty. The skin of his face is sallow and stretched tight over his skull. His hair is matted and muddy.

“Darling,” the dead man croaks, “why didn’t you wait for me? I came looking for you and you were gone. I knew you would come back here. I’ve been waiting for you for so long.” He stretches his arms out to beckon Caleb forward. His fingers are bony and some of the nails have fallen off. There’s a jagged hole in his chest clotted over with dark blood. “I waited, why didn’t you?”

Caleb wakes up with the urge to vomit. He scans the inside of the dome, aided by the faint light it gives off. Six sleeping shapes. All of them alive, none of them _him_. He exhales a hard breath. His eyes sting. He presses the heels of his palms to them as though that will stop the tears from forming. It doesn’t work. What’s worse is he can’t even go for a walk to get away from the others without dispelling the dome. An involuntary sob forces its way out of his throat. He freezes. Beau twitches and rolls over with a grunt, but they all remain asleep.

If Frumpkin weren’t the only one on watch, Caleb would summon him to help him get back to sleep. Sometimes the best way to come down from bad dreams is to have Frumpkin knead his chest then curl up and purr on top of him. That reminds Caleb of an old fantasy, where Mollymauk would kiss him from navel to neck and murmur affectionate assurances in his ear while Caleb held him close. Back then he knew that was never going to happen, and now it certainly never will. It’s like a knife in Caleb’s chest. A knife. A glaive. Twisting.

 _Snap_. Frumpkin nuzzles Caleb’s chin with the top of his head. Caleb clutches his familiar with trembling fingers. Frumpkin makes a tiny noise of disapproval. “Sorry…” Caleb mutters. He strokes Frumpkin more gently as an apology. The soft fur against his palm helps ground him. He takes deep breaths. His stomach won’t stop churning. The image of Mollymauk, dead yet not dead, rotten yet whole, face incapable of expression yet so clearly sad and lonely, is burned into his mind. Unfortunately, Caleb does not forget things so easily.

Sleep eludes him no matter how hard Caleb tries to will himself back to unconsciousness. After half an hour he lets Frumpkin resume his watch position. Caleb tiptoes to the edge of the dome and lies with his head poking out the side. He’s inside the dome enough to maintain the spell, but he needed the fresh air and starlight. Smudges of dark grey clouds drift through the sky. Caleb watches the weather for storms these days. Storms mean Yasha might leave. He envies her. He is too much of a coward to leave. Besides, if he runs away he will never meet anyone else who remembers the real Mollymauk Tealeaf.

“ _I waited, why didn’t you?_ ” Molly’s words echo in Caleb’s heart. Now that the others can’t see his tears Caleb lets them fall freely. Always such a coward. He fled from that dream, the guilt. So many things left unsaid, and the list only grows longer.

Caleb could have told him that he _couldn’t_ have waited, as much as he wished he could. The others were in danger and they needed help. It was the whole reason they rushed their fucking ambush. Then they came back and the ground was undisturbed. Molly was still in there, days later. And again, they weren’t allowed to wait. They had to go back to Zadash with Ophelia Mardun. If it were up to Caleb he would have dug Molly out with his bare hands, carried him all the way to the Cerberus Assembly, and screamed at the top of his lungs that those bastards owed him for everything they had done so they’d better find a way to make _this_ right at the very least.

“ _I came looking for you and you were gone_.” How long would it have taken? Molly came out of the ground once, alive and well. If it happened a second time he shouldn’t look…like _that_. Then again, Caduceus had cast that spell on his grave. Would that have affected whatever strange magic might bring Molly back? Would it have eaten away at his body while his will stayed strong? Caleb can’t bear the thought of Molly walking that long road in search of his friends, dead yet not dead, rotten yet whole…

An hour passes. Caleb cannot sleep. He tells himself over and over that it was a dream. Mollymauk could not have truly been there any more than his old bedroom could still be standing. Both are lost to dirt and ashes. He wants them both back. Someday he might be able to change everything and make that possible, but he’s also aware that it will come at a great cost. It might take years, or decades. Will Molly still be waiting for him, there on his bed? Will he still have hollow eyes and the remnants of his fatal wound? Caleb is afraid to fall asleep. He doesn’t want to see Molly like that again. It’s worse than never seeing him at all.

Something taps his foot. Caleb sits up abruptly. It’s Nott.

“Caleb, are you alright?” Nott has Darkvision. Even without the dim light of the dome she wouldn’t be able to miss the glint of tears on his cheeks. From the way her ears droop and her brow furrows Caleb knows she has already seen them.

“I am fine, Nott,” he says with a forced smile. “Go back to sleep.”

Nott gets to her feet. “I um, I have to tinkle, actually. …You can’t come with me, can you?” Caleb shakes his head. “Right, the dome…thingy. Well, I’ll be back in a few.” She hefts her crossbow and heads out into the night. If he’s awake when she gets back, she might try to talk to him.

Caleb crawls back to his bedroll. It’s cold. He curls into a tight ball and covers himself with his coat. He tries once again to chase the restless thoughts away. Since he can’t help but think of Mollymauk, he will remember him as he was. He remembers Molly lying casually in the wagon, shuffling through his Tarot cards and occasionally flipping them with a frown or a smile. He remembers Molly laughing with Jester as they exchanged jokes and quips in Infernal. He remembers Molly in the baths at Zadash, the first time Caleb saw him naked and knew he could no longer deny his attraction. For a week his daydreams were filled with steam and heated skin and the weightlessness of the water holding them up as they embraced. He forces himself to return to those daydreams and bring them to the night.

The trick works, to an extent, because the next thing Caleb knows it is morning, and there are six stirring bodies around him. None of them is _him_.

* * * *

It takes two more iterations of the new nightmare, both with Mollymauk in his horrific ghoulish form reaching out to him with the same questions but growing more and more desperate, before Caleb goes to Caduceus for advice.

“Herr Clay?”

Caduceus looks up from his kettle as he prepares his morning tea. “Ah, Mister Caleb, what can I do for you?”

Caleb doesn’t know where to begin. “You have been of assistance in dealing with the undead on multiple occasions,” he says.

“Uh, yeah, guess I have,” Caduceus replies with his pleasant smile.

“Have you ever…erm… That is, do you know anything about…visions of the undead? A-About being pursued by them in your dreams?”

Caduceus frowns. “Well, I imagine it’s unpleasant, but I don’t have any personal experience with it.” He sets out an extra teacup for Caleb. “What sort of undead are you seeing? A spirit? A reanimated body? Skeletons?”

“It’s…um…it’s a body, but I’m not sure if it is reanimated. In fact I am not even sure it is dead, though it looks…decidedly unhealthy.” Caleb swallows. “His…His eyes are missing, and he is thin, so thin. He is bloody from the wound that killed him. He speaks as though he is alive but…but he can’t be.” Hot pressure between his eyes. Caleb sniffles. “Herr Clay, he is afraid, and so am I.”

The kettle boils. Caduceus pours water into both cups and sprinkles in the tea. “It’s your friend, isn’t it?” he asks. “Molly?”

Caleb nods. “ _Ja_. He asks why I did not wait for him, why I left him there alone and I _can’t answer him_. I cannot bear to see him like that so I run away.” The pressure spreads to the corners of his eyes. He blinks back the tears. They choke his voice anyway. “What is this? Can it…Can it really be him? Is he haunting me? Or is it only his memory that haunts me?”

Caduceus takes a sip of tea. He licks his lips and puts the cup down. “As I said, I uh, haven’t experienced this myself, so I don’t know exactly what to tell you. You all did well, giving him a proper burial. Some spirits take offense to how their bodies are treated after death, which is why my family does what we do. Huhm… You said his eyes are missing?”

“Yes.”

“Then it could be he feels lost, wherever he is, unable to find his way to the other side. And uh, if he’s asking why you left him behind, maybe it’s not that he’s looking for the other side, it’s that he’s looking for _you_. And if you keep running away, then he’s going to keep coming back trying to find you.” Caduceus sips his tea again. One ear flicks in satisfaction. “All I can tell you, Mister Caleb, is that it is the natural order of things to die and move on. It’s what the soul is inclined to do, unless there’s something it considers more urgent. If your friend is defying death to find you, I suggest you let him, or he’ll continue delaying his rest until you do.”

Caleb’s heart sinks. “Oh.”

Caduceus drinks another sip of tea. “Of course, this is all assuming that it really is your friend appearing to you in your dreams and isn’t, well, just a dream. But I find that even when dreams are ‘just a dream’, they mean something, especially if you keep having the same one. But even if it’s not him, you’ll never learn what your dream means if you run away every time.” He nods to Caleb’s teacup. “You might want to drink that before it gets cold.”

“Oh. Right. Yes. My apologies.” Caleb surreptitiously sniffs the tea before trying it. It is good tea. He wonders who it used to be. “My problem, Herr Clay, is that I am…er um, not a brave man.”

“So you say, but I don’t think that’s true.” Caduceus smiles warmly at him. “True, you’re not quite as uh, _confident_ as Miss Beau or Mister Fjord, but they have things that scare them, too. Everyone is afraid of something, but everyone finds their courage eventually. If you want, and speaking of your friend, I have this tea that Miss Beau says he bought once. It’s supposed to help you sleep. I can make some for you tonight. It might not stop you from dreaming, but maybe it will help you stay calm while you’re there.”

“Thank you,” Caleb says, drinking more of the tea in his hands. “If it is not inconvenient to you, I might take you up on that.”

Caduceus smiles a little wider and shrugs one shoulder. “It’s never an inconvenience, Mister Caleb, especially if it will help you _and_ your friend find peace.”

Caleb nods and finishes his tea. The others are nearly ready to go. There’s still plenty of road ahead of them before they reach Alfield. If Caleb is going to face his nightmares again, he would like to do it from a real bed, so he thanks Caduceus for the tea and helps load the last of their things onto the wagon.

* * * *

There’s no pretense to it tonight. Caleb is simply standing on the hill where they buried Molly. The branch he drove into the ground is there, but the coat is missing. The mound of soil has inverted, collapsed into a space where something else used to be. Caleb steels himself and walks to the place where Molly fell.

Sure enough, there he is, lying in the road, exactly the way he was when Lorenzo and the Iron Shepherds left. He sits up as Caleb approaches. “Caleb,” he calls out in his ghastly rasping voice. His empty eyes are forlorn. His withered claws grasp at the air. “Caleb, why did you leave me?”

Caleb wants to run. He doesn’t want to go near this…apparition. But if it is Molly, if he needs help, then Caleb has no choice. Putting one trembling foot in front of the other, he approaches.

Molly smiles when Caleb kneels beside him. “Darling…”

“Mollymauk, I—” Caleb extends his hand. He tries to hide his repulsion as he strokes Molly’s filthy hair. “I am so sorry.”

“Darling, I’ve been waiting here for you,” Molly says. “Where have you been?”

Caleb swallows. “I— I was afraid. You’re… You’re dead, Mollymauk. You shouldn’t be here.”

Molly chuckles, his laugh dry and weak. “I know that. And frankly I’m not too pleased with how I look either, Mister Caleb. I wish you could have thought of me some other way.”

“…What?”

“I’ve been trying to manifest to you for a while, but I could only do it on your terms.” Molly gestures to his decayed form. “This wasn’t my first choice, but your mind seems adamant about keeping you terrified of your past mistakes. That’s how you think of me, my death, and so that’s how I appear to you.” He huffs. “Would you mind imagining something better? This is dreadfully uncomfortable.”

Caleb’s heart races. “I’ll— I’ll try.” He closes his eyes and thinks. Mollymauk resting casually in the wagon. Mollymauk strutting through the market looking for something tacky to purchase. Mollymauk laughing and drinking at whatever tavern they’ve stopped at. Mollymauk in the bathhouse, the heated water holding them up as they embrace…

“Ah, that’s better.”

Caleb opens his eyes. They’re still on Glory Run Road. Snow falls gently around them. Molly is lounging on his outspread coat, skin plump and flushed, red eyes gleaming with a smile, steam rising off his whole, healthy, naked body. All the fear leaves Caleb at once, replaced by a myriad of other feelings that are far more enjoyable.

 “Molly…”

Molly reaches out his arms. This time, Caleb throws himself into them. He doesn’t care if this is a dream. It’s the closest he’ll ever get to having Molly back, and he wants to savor it.

“Thank you, darling,” Molly says. He presses a kiss to the side of Caleb’s head. “You don’t know how much this means to me.”

Caleb holds Molly tight. He feels real. He feels warm and alive. “Mollymauk I am _so, so sorry_. I didn’t want to leave you, but we—”

“Shh,” Molly interrupts. He pats and rubs Caleb on the back. “It’s okay, love. I know. I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry we never got the chance to do this before…well, you know. I wanted to wait until you were ready. You weren’t in a good place to accept affection, but I was willing to wait. Part of me was afraid I would never live that long. Didn’t expect it to be like this, but I also didn’t expect most of the things that happened in my life. I didn’t expect to love you as much as I do.”

“I love you too, Molly.” In this dream state, it doesn’t feel odd to say that. It’s the truth. It’s one of the things he regretted never telling him. Caleb clenches his fists behind Molly’s back. “I should have tried harder to save you.”

Molly chuckles sadly. “I didn’t stand a chance, sweetheart. Outnumbered? Overpowered? No healer? I’m relieved the rest of you got away. My death was worth it to protect the rest of you.” He takes Caleb’s head in his hands and touches their foreheads together. “That’s why I’ve been trying to talk to you. I wanted you to know I’m okay. Been having a bloody difficult time of it. I told you, your mind is not a fun place. It twisted me to fit your nightmares, and I didn’t know how to stop it. I figured I had to be patient, wait for you to come to me, understand that I was more than another bad dream. And I’m so glad you did, darling. I’m so proud of you.”

“I was afraid,” Caleb says. His whole body trembles. “I was afraid you were upset with me. I was afraid I had abandoned you. I’m such a coward, Mollymauk. I don’t know why you love me.”

“Because you’re not a coward,” Molly says. “You have your moments, but you push through them. I admired that about you. Still do. I could see the good in you. Then I died and _I_ was afraid, because I thought my death would be the final straw and you would never recover. I’ll have an eternity to rest, but I didn’t want to spend however many years of that watching you suffer. What’s a few weeks of fighting my way into your subconscious compared to decades of peace?”

Caleb sniffles. “So you’ve been trapped in my nightmares all this time? And I ran away. I _did_ abandon you. Mollymauk, _es tut mir sehr leid._ You shouldn’t have had to go through that. My mind is…not a fun place, as you said. It is terrible. It is no place for the likes of you. You should have moved on weeks ago.”

Molly brushes Caleb’s tears away with the pads of his thumbs. “I couldn’t without saying goodbye. I loved you too much to just _leave_ like that. Then seeing what it’s like in here? Learning the pain and tragedy that’s behind your beautiful eyes and knowing who you are despite all of it? Gods, Caleb, I love you more than ever. I wish I could have stayed with you or told you when we had time, but I’m telling you now. Take that with you. Keep it in this strange keen mind of yours. When your nightmares try to tear you down, remember I am somewhere beyond the Divine Gate, utterly toes-over-tail in love with you, and that someday we’ll be together again.”

“I— I’ll do my best, Mollymauk.”

Molly smiles. “I know you will. You always do. You just have to forgive yourself when your best isn’t as good as you wanted. Even at your worst, you have good in your heart, so keep me there. I’ll always be with you that way.” He runs his fingers through Caleb’s hair. A tear falls from the corner of one red eye. Then he kisses Caleb, so sweetly and so passionately that Caleb worries the intensity might shock him awake. Caleb can smell him, taste him, feel the heat of Molly’s lips on his own. He never wants this dream to end, but Molly doesn’t belong here. Still, Caleb will memorize this moment, carve a place amid the trauma and pain for this kiss to shine like moonlight through storm clouds and guide him out of darkness.

Molly presses their foreheads together again. “So you promise me you’ll forgive yourself for the things you can’t control?”

“Yes, my love, I will.”

“Good.” Mollymauk grins. “Then before I go, and while you _do_ have control of your mind, why don’t we turn this dream from a nightmare into something more…pleasant?”

With but a thought, they’re gone from Glory Run Road. The air of the bathhouse is heavy around them, but in the water they’re blissfully buoyant. Mollymauk kisses Caleb from navel to neck and murmurs in his ear as Caleb holds him close.

“Don’t worry, my darling. I’ll wait for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leaves kudos and comments, and if you want to support my work even more you can find me on Ko-fi under the same name!


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